IDL manual breakpoint operation

using breakpoints on idlde over vncviewer (as opposed to chicken-of-the-vnc) was fraught.  The usual key combinations would not place breakpoints anywhere.  But I eventually learned that:

DOUBLE CLICKING ON GRAY BORDER AT VERY LEFT OF DESIRED LINE TOGGLES BREAKPOINT

Here is a harder way that I learned before above red easy way:

1. select desired line
2. shift control b toggles a breakpoint on that line.

Here is an even harder way to do it from keyboard:

help,/breakpoint  will give a list of existing breakpoints

cd, ‘full path to desired directory’ will change idl’s current directory from users home directory (the default) to another. remember apostrophes CASE SENSITIVE

printd   prints the current directory

IDL> printd
Current Directory: /data/psrdata/arecibopuppi/B1913+16/2019Aug
Directory stack is empty.

breakpoint,/set, ‘filename inside of current idl directory path [see printd above to discover current path value] ‘, 150   (use apostrophes, note final value is linenumber) CASE SENSITIVE

i think i did not see the red circle on line 150 of idlde until i recompiled.

check out help,/breakpoint to see a list of current breakpoints, including their “index” which can be used in some other breakpoint commands like breakpoint,/clear,1 (index 1)

IDL> help,/breakpoint
Index Line Attributes                                                 File
1         150      Pro=PLOTADAYSRMTOT       /data/psrdata/arecibopuppi/B1913+16/2019Aug/plotAdaysRMtot.pro